Audubon opened The Birds of America with the wild turkey — a deliberate patriotic flourish, the great native bird Benjamin Franklin had thought more worthy than the eagle. A magnificent male strides through the cane of a Louisiana canebrake, head turned, wattles bright, rendered life-size on the enormous “double elephant” sheet Audubon insisted on so that no bird need be shrunk. This is the celebrated first plate, engraved in the earliest state by W. H. Lizars of Edinburgh before Robert Havell took over the great work. Rigorous natural history and swaggering showmanship in one image — the opening note of the most ambitious book in the history of ornithology.

Maker: John James Audubon; engraved by W. H. Lizars (1785 to 1851)
Date: 1827
Medium of the original: Engraving
Original held by: The Birds of America, Plate 1
Credit: The Birds of America, Plate 1 · via Wikimedia Commons
Rights: Public domain, verified
Catalogue number: PA-00664

As chosen: 16 x 24 in, art print, classic frame
Picture	16 x 24 in
Outside size	17.6 x 25.6 in
Depth	0.9 in (22 mm)
Weight	[[REAL PROOF NEEDED: shipped weight per size and frame]]
Hanging	[[REAL PROOF NEEDED: hanging hardware Prodigi fits to this frame]]
Material	Enhanced matte art paper, 200 gsm; acrylic glazing
Made in	Charlotte, North Carolina, by Prodigi

Before a size goes on sale, the file is measured against it: pixels per inch at that size, how much of the picture a crop would lose, tone and sharpness. A size that fails is not offered, so there is nothing to choose wrong.

How the print check works

Sizes offered
Size	dpi	Grade	How it fits
8 x 12 in	991	Excellent	Trimmed 0.9%
12 x 18 in	661	Excellent	Trimmed 0.8%
16 x 24 in	495	Excellent	Trimmed 0.9%
20 x 30 in	396	Excellent	Trimmed 0.8%
24 x 36 in	330	Excellent	Trimmed 0.8%
40 x 60 in	198	Good	Trimmed 0.8%

Sizes withheld
Size	Why
8 x 10 in	Wrong shape: a 16% crop
11 x 14 in	Wrong shape: a 14% crop
12 x 16 in	Wrong shape: a 10% crop
16 x 20 in	Wrong shape: a 16% crop
18 x 24 in	Wrong shape: a 10% crop
24 x 30 in	Wrong shape: a 16% crop
30 x 40 in	Wrong shape: a 10% crop
36 x 48 in	Wrong shape: a 10% crop

Scanned

2026-10-07

Master file

8,000 x 11,898 px, srgb, Adobe RGB (1998)

Tone

Darks 60, lights 231 of 255; 0% clipped light, 0% clipped dark

Colour

0% vivid

Sharpness

75.8

Notes

Colour profile Adobe RGB (1998), converted to sRGB for the screen and the print
Neutrals lean warm (yellow): the paper and varnish of the original, kept as scanned

Shipping for this piece to a US address is $25.90, the print room’s own rate, charged per piece. Checkout shows the total before you pay.

Every piece is printed after you order it, in Charlotte, North Carolina, and ships from there. For now we ship to US addresses only.

A piece that arrives damaged, misprinted or in the wrong size is replaced at our cost. The details: shipping and returns and replacements.